Coquitlam Public Library

Dimensions of scientific thought, John T. Sanders

eng

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Dimensions of scientific thought

electronic resource

John T. Sanders

Science is a way of knowing that's characterized by the rules of logic and the methods of experiment. But the conflict between logic and experiment has created a long-standing tension in scientific understanding. The classical period and the Middle Ages favored rationalism; most thinkers began with general, self-evident truths, using deductive reasoning to draw more specific logical conclusions. Empiricism begins with experimental or sensory experience; a bottom-up process of inductive reasoning produces more general hypotheses and theories. David Hume emphasized the role of perception in knowing things, but he argued that past experience cannot justify firm conclusions about the future. Immanuel Kant emphasized the role of the mind in all observation, showing that everything we see is "theory laden;" Auguste Comte and the "positivists" insisted that what is real is observable. Karl Popper emphasized the role of refutation in weeding out bad scientific theories, and Thomas Kuhn suggested that scientific progress occurs in a succession of explanatory "paradigms." Kuhn, Feyerabend, and others have shown the difficulties of distinguishing between experiment and theory, or fact and interpretation. Science has shown that absolute truth is elusive. Yet when science is judged by its usefulness, it is one of the most spectacular achievements of human kind. Science is a never-ending cycle of questions and answers-a perpetual process of discovery

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